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Mouse inventor strives for more |
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| Mon, September 01 2003 | 5:06AM | PermaLink |
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"I'd been trying for many years in the early 1960s to get interactive computers to support individuals," he says.
One of the ideas was a way of allowing people to interact with a computer screen. Dr Engelbart recalls some of his team's early ideas.
"We had a big heavy tracking ball, it was like a cannonball. We had several gadgets that ended up with pivots you could move around. We had a light panel you had to hold up right next to the screen so the computer could see it. And a joystick that you wiggle around to try to steer things."
In the end, the mouse won all the tests for speed and accuracy. At the time it was called an x-y position indicator. "We thought that when it had escaped out to the world it would have a more dignified name, but it didn't."
As well as the ever present mouse, his team developed hypertext linking, the integration of text and graphics, networking, a web-style browser and even video conferencing.
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